Skill Point Investment Guide

If you fight only white monster you will never have a problem with acquiring Skill Points (SP). Let correct a misconception. It is reported often that you get less SP at higher levels than lower levels. While you get more SP per monster or Experience Points (XP) at lower levels, there is more monsters or experience points required at every new level. So while the SP diminishes slightly per monster, there are a lot more monsters to kill and therefore the SP pool increases at every level.

This makes two common recommendations obsolete:
1. Suicide or killing yourself before leveling to keep harvesting high SP percent monsters. Since you have more SP available at the next level it’s counter productive to throw away good XP. Specially since the purpose of SP is to aid in getting XP.
2. Production Alt Character to specialize in special skills. At first glance this seem quite logical. The disadvantage is that it takes away development time from your main character. It could be either expensive or very time consuming depending on your method. Expensive if you develop it normally then use a skill reset card to switch to a production character. Time consuming if you invest in production skills instead of character skills since he will have a hard time killing monsters to level. As the guide will show it not necessary.

There are passive skills, active skills and special skills. We will cover each one in turn

The first skills you should consider upgrading first are the character’s passive skills. Choose wisely. While Elfen walk is nice to have for a healer without a mount, Rise Focus which increases hit rate would be a better choice. Remember Passive skills are always on and are permanent. They will never become obsolete.

Active Skills have two types dungeon and non-dungeon.
Active skills can become obsolete and dungeon skills become obsolete rather quickly. Dungeon skills can only be used in the Personal dungeons; non-dungeon can be used anywhere. There are four dungeons and you can enter then at levels 5, 15, 25, and 35. You will find that it is very difficult when first available and not very useful at the closing levels at the monsters turn blue and green. I don’t recommend you invest in dungeon skill unless you plan on specializing in dungeons when available and plan to do a skill reset when the dungeons are no longer available.
You normally get at least one active attack skill when you first start. As mentioned; active skills can become obsolete. And these free ones are the first to become ineffective. Normally the wind up time for these skills is equal to 3 normal attacks and the damage may be only slightly higher. Mages are an exception. They have to cause as much damage as quickly as possible. With Skill refresh and regen passives, it is worth it t max their active skills. For other characters, it quite possible to ignore developing these skills and use the SP more productively. If you plan to do a Skill reset later anyway that there is no harm in improving these Skill.

Special skills:
These include Harvesting (mining and energy gathering also) , Production which includes Alchemy, Weapon and Armor making and processing skills which includes changing base material (leaves stones and energy) into real production items.

If you are using pets; you may consider invest some SP on mining or harvesting early on. You will get these basic skills free from the NPC. For Pets mining should be a priority as pets have a constant starvation rate. If you can avoid pet aggressive monsters you will also need harvesting early on. If you raise only 1 pet at a time and keep it equipped; you will not need energy to raise sympathy. If you use the private lands in Dratan these skills will be improved at only a 30 coin charge per item. However these skills will be necessary if you wish to do any type of Production work.

Which Production skill to invest will be determined by your needs and circumstances. If you are in a guild with 3 weapon makers a fourth would be redundant.
Alchemy may be the easiest to acquire. Few of the production items need process material. However it has only an indirect effect on gaining experience. If you need money, HP and MP recovery potion are in demand especially by titans. Red name players always like to purchase tears. If you do go this route expert level is required to make consistent success rates.

In your mid 30’s you start to acquire a surplus of SP. This is good because the weapons and armor you need are no longer available at the weapon and armor traders. And you have to make your own. Weapon and armor making skills do not have to be maxed immediately. Check the manuals to see how high a level is required before committing the SP.

Some are surprised that Processing skills are recommended last. Without the raw materials, there is nothing to process and there is little use for processing material without the ability to make something. In the meantime you can use the master of processing material to make your production material. He is a master in the sense that he can process many items but his success rate is not that high. You can acquire the skill and do better at expert level. However the master can process up to 10 items at a time.

Would you trust a cook that doesn’t eat his own dishes? My Level 61 main rogue has all his skills maxed (except yellow leaf processing which I can but don’t need). I have spent SP to raise my guild to level 4 and Level 5. My Alts characters normally hae a surplus since they do not have to invest in any special skills. For example, I wanted a rezzur available for my guild. At level 25 when it was available she immediately maxed it to level 4 and maxed it before Level 26. (Resurrection skill needs 550 to max) She is now a Level 38 cleric with all skills maxed (need 17 con for 1 more) with a 300 SP surplus.

One strategy that is popular is to bank SP by buying production skills. This prevents SP lost when you die. This will require a special skills reset card from the item mall. If you are buying Item Mall items you may want to consider the Skill point Restoration scroll or even better the resurrection scroll. You will not lose any SP with the former and the later will preserve both SP and XP. Either gives you the option of resurrecting at the place of death or town. Unless you die a lot, either is much cheaper that the skill reset card. (Yes there is an experience scroll also)
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Credits go to Datasurgeon for putting this guide together!